"So glad you could all be here to join us. I know that it's been a lot of work for us to get this all working, but I'm happy, yes, very happy to welcome you all to the official grand opening of the Sebb Gloval Museum Station. I know we've all suffered through the opening speeches and the unsealing ceremony, so let's go have a quick tour of the first three piers, and then we can get on to the buffet. Don't worry, I know where your priorities all are!"

"Yes, all the docked ships will be open for tours after the buffet. Yes, you can queue up before hand, but you'll still have to wait."

"Ah, yes, on to our first pier. This is is our exploratory pier. A little sparse right now, but we think it's best to allocate a good amount of space right off the bat. Right now we have the dWMS Augen, and the dWMS Denkfaul. The former is being refitted back to her original Mk1 condition as of her original commissioning, and the Denkfaul is in her current Mk3 configuration. We're quite lucky to have two Augen class ships; most of them are being sent to the breakers, but the deWulf Navy was kind enough to donate both hulls for our use."

"Yes, we'll be doing some interpretive centers and the like on both ships, focusing on different aspects of space exploration. We're looking at having planet-side survey on Augen, and space surveying on Denkfaul, though when we get one of the command survey ships, we'll be moving the planet side survey over to her instead. Moving on."

"Pier 2 is our first of two First Contact War piers. On one side we have a Slingshot-class, the dWMS Catapult, and a Hauptmann-Class, the dWMS Hauptmann. We're particularly proud of getting Hauptmann. She's only seen minimal upgrades since the First Contact War, and the majority of her systems are either period manufacture or period accurate. We're also scheduled to be getting the dWMS von Braun, the deWulf flagship for the second half of the war, but she's still undergoing decommissioning at the Mittelspanung yards. We won't be seeing her till early next year at the earliest."

"Pier 3 is probably our most controversial pier at present. Right now it has a Strelets-Class Light Cruiser, but we're working with a memorial fund from Sintilla to see if they can find a wreck of a Storvin or Ostrova-Class Frigate. It's going to be a long process, but we're also hoping to get a Berlenko-Class Destroyer as well. A few of them survived the war as scrap salvage, and we're seeing if any of them are still reasonably intact. As it is, we have a few containers docked with various components and interpretive exhibits, but we feel it's important to show both sides of the conflict."

"At present we have only the exhibits for three piers at the moment. Pier 4 is slated to be the Binary War pier, and Piers 5 and 6 will be used for visiting ships on port tours, at least until we have more exhibits to put on display. Now, with that all done, let's head to the central dome for the buffet. Once we're all done with lunch, we can go down the pillar and see the small craft exhibits."

Even at this stage of the war, Elysian navy forces had chosen not to defend their warp points. A sensor watch was kept, modified freighters holding at a far enough range to give them a chance to escape but still able to watch the warp points. Away from the planet and its defensive fire, deWulf ships had shown their ability to sweep any warp point clear.

But that comprimise between sensor coverage and the ability to escape meant that the warp point wasn't perfectly covered. True, any starship, or even any gunboat would be spotted and identified. But drones were small enough that they could slip in and out and not be spotted.

And thanks to both the captured battlecruiser, as well as significant amounts of spare parts and salvage from Dave's World, the deWulf were ready to try a new technique against the Elysian navy. A single drone slid in through the warp point, the wormhole barely flickering as it passed through. Slowly stabilizing after transit, its scanners locking on to the watching freighter.

Too far away to be detected by its sensors, the drone carefully aimed its communications laser at the waiting freighter. Built from equipment left behind on Dave's World, the laser triggered no alarms. On the right frequency and with the correct initial handshake protocols, the freighter's automated systems opened a communications link with the "friendly" drone. The freighter interrogated the drone, and provisionally accepted the access codes while it waited for further confirmation.

Here the deWulf showed just how carefully they had studied Elysian technology. The initial comm request was carefully malformed, taking advantage of a subtle design oversight in the communications preprocessor. All it took was a carefully formed data header to cause part of the communications preprocessor to lock up, which in turn timed out the authentication request. That lack of response told the preprocessor to fully accept the outdated access codes, as no alarm had been triggered. With the communications link authenticated, the drone messaged that it had routine navigational updates. What it actually sent was something far different.

Once in the suborned communications preprocessor, the uploaded data packet unfurled into an invasive worm, slowly taking up more and more processing cycles as it listened to the data system it was a part of. Its first act was to "confirm" its access by reinitializing the locked up part of the preprocessor, and then presented its new "up to date" access codes. These updated codes were duly sent to the main server, which then confirmed the validity of the permissions it had already granted.

deWulf scientists had identified several flaws in the network architechture found of Elysian ships, and with an access point, they were finally able to put their knowledge to use. One of the largest weakpoints was that most system maintenence was managed through the secondary data router. In principle, it was a good idea as it kept the main data loop free for operational traffic. In practice, it meant the left hand of the network didn't always know what the right was doing. Worse, its memory management was built for speed first, and security second. After all, a hostile agent would need physical access to insert something into the data loop.

After thirty seconds of sniffing, it had identified the locations where permissions were stored in active memory:

All it took was a single burst of data, and a single bit switched value before the secondary router knew what was happening. Instructed to update an obscure navigatonal reference (a resource-poor kuiper moonlet in the Elysian system), the data overflowed from one memory reference into a neigboring bit, and the "navigational update" found it had complete access to all hardware in the secondary data loop.

With complete official access, the worm then backdated its own access, making its access completely above board. While this wouldn't stand up to any real scrutiny, it took advantage of one final weak point in the data loops. While the primary loop was carefully monitored for possible intrustions, the secondary data loop relied on external access codes and authentications for its security. By definition, if you had access, you were authorized.

This little bit of circular logic was its true weak point.

The worm then roamed the local network, hunting for any loose bits of information. Recent messages, navigational orders, personal notes, news reports and briefings. It hoovered it all up, compressing the data ruthlessly before bouncing it back to the waiting drone. It's work done, the worm quietly folded back in on itself, changing the date-stamps on some of the navigational files to preserve its cover identity. Once it received confirmation that the data was secure on the drone, it revoked its own network access before flagging itself for routine deletion (and triggering a garbage management routine in the process).

The process took less than 90 seconds, and the drone quietly slunk back through the wormhole to its eventual rendezvous, the freighter none the wiser.

------ Newsfeed Online ------*Catchy news jingle plays*From the very depths of space to the lowest streets of Fenris, deWulf State News brings the facts of thegalaxy to your desk!*DSN News!*

"Good evening, I’m Janeth deVries."

"Tonight's story is the announcement that EisenRucke United is moving its primary financial hub off of Fenris. The plan, apparently in development and research for the past year, is to relocate their primary clearing houses and records to a new location in the Falke system, one jump out. The new colony site named 'Thaarvald' is expected to open sometime next year. What does this mean for our local finance industry, and what can we expect when the world's largest bank effectively goes offshore?"

The camera pans to the right , showing an older Fenren in a conservative grey suit. Her eyes had a cool, almost indifferent look, and what motion she exhibited was a study in efficiency.

"A pleasure to be here tonight, Janeth. I can understand why our customers and clients would be concerned with this decision."

"Undoubtedly. I'm sure you've already seen some of the editorials from the Thaar Financial Report. I believe they called this 'A callous business decision'. How do you respond to that?"

Hanneke shifted a bit in her chair, leaning a bit forward of vertical.

"It's anything but callous. The simple fact is that our administration, management, and analysis groups have grown too large for what Thaar can hope to support. I'm certain the Financial Report listed off an even dozen satellite campuses throughout the city that are ours, and that's just the ones owned and operated by EisenRucke directly. With some of our subsidiaries and partners, we make up almost a quarter of the office tenancies in the city."

She took a sip of water from a tall glass on the table in front of her.

"And the sad fact is, we just can't justify the amount of work needed to upgrade and integrate the entire organization in the way we need. If we did, we would have to dig up over half of the city to run the data lines. And that's not even including the cost of housing for our employees. Even with the opening of the Graan metroplex, we're still short-staffed. We have literally hundreds of employees wanting to join us, open positions for them, but no housing for them to live."

The executive shifted a bit more, hands straightening out the front of her suit.

"It's not even a total departure, either. The Thaar Financial Report states that we are entirely leaving Tharr. That's not even remotely true. The first divisions that are moving will be our secure data storage division, and our long-term secure asset division. Both of these groups are spread across a multitude of locations, each with its own security challenges and requirements. Centralizing them on Tharrvald simplifies matters, and also opens up more space for operations here."

Janeth saw the opening, and like any proper investigator and reporter, drove the wedge in deep.

"But that's only the first divisions. There's still assurance, investment management, analysis and insurance. All of those departments can also move as well, and they're not tied to their local markets, are they?"

"No, no they aren't." Hanneke almost rocked back visibly from the hit as she continued. "That still isn't our biggest single department. Central Finance is responsible for managing the Corporate State's financial liquidity, and that means monitoring a half dozen blockchains that make up the deWulf Kett. That's also twelve different economic markets, each compromising over a billion in monthly GDP. Each chain needs to be crosschecked, verified, and synchronized up before being sent back to the issuing world. Having a single central location to accomplish this is vital as the Corporate Democracy expands."

Leaning back forward as she caught her stride again, she continued. "Regardless of that, we still have too many customers to even think about reducing our footprint here on Fenris. Our customer base is the foundation of our business, after all, and no structure can hope to survive without a solid foundation. But if we are to provide the same quality of service to both our customers and the State, then this expansion is the best way to do it."